#SXSWi Session Notes: Better Crowdsourcing: Lessons Learned from the 3six5 Project

These are my raw notes from this session.Background:Started late 2009, when the idea of life streaming was gaining momentum.Crowd sourcing: inspiration, collaboration and co-creation.Six Items or Less: asks women to wear six items for a month. Turns from a relationship with clothes to a relationship with themselves to a relationship with consumerism.Tumble vs. Posterous. Partnership was with Posterous, they supported us because they were smaller than Tumblr, willing to do more. It helped to go where the people aren't. We are featured 18% of the time on Posterous, whereas if they had been on Facebook, they might have been lost.Start with a simple and easy to understand idea. Anyone can understand this and participate.Collaborative production. People want to work on really interesting briefs. New ways to form a new community and try new new things in a safe place.How do you structure the acceptance of the idea: setting standards for how ideas are submitted to make it easier for the curators to go through it.It is a problem when your volunteers don't read the guidelines, follow the rules or understand the stories. Ultimately they were asking for 365 favors. Asking people to do things a certain way. Wanting people to contribute in a way that they don't on any other channel. When managing people, you have to push them; that is where the good work comes from.In crowdsourcing, the work belongs to the community, so you have to relinquish some control. Giving away ownership is actually quite rewarding for the participants. In the Six Items project, there is a lot of self loathing that happens and the one thing Heidi won't tolerate is bullying.The doesn't have to be a gaming component to get people to participate. Sometimes it is just a growth hierarchy.In advertising, you have to earn your way up to better shops and bigger titles. Crowdsourcing lets people work around that. It holds up people that are really passionate, but haven't had a voice before. Offers networking opportunities, too.Managing as growth continues means bringing up people within the community. Empowering people with scaling.Have seen copycats of 365 project and they are okay with that because it brings more attention to the original project.Just launched a local version of 3six5 in Chicago.